Field of the Invention
The invention relates to ventilation of buildings, and more precisely to predominantly shape-conform roof vents with enhanced properties.
Description of the Related Art
The proper ventilation of buildings and houses is important to maintain suitable humidity levels, to help maintain acceptable temperature inside the building while reducing costs for heating or cooling, and for maintaining indoor air quality.
In some cases such ventilation systems comprise ducts through which air from the inside of a building is channeled towards the roof. In other cases the ventilation systems primarily serve to ventilate the attic spaces of a building. In some instances these may be passive ventilation systems and in other instances active systems, such as active ventilation systems driven by a fan.
In many such cases vents are needed which are typically placed on the roof or sometimes on the walls of buildings. The principle function of the vent is to enable air inflow or outflow while reducing, or in some cases, effectively eliminating penetration of water (rain, snow, ice), debris, vermin, insects, embers, or other unwanted material into the building.
Sometimes, vents are integrated into the roof or wall in a shape-conform manner in order to reduce the disturbance to the optical appearance of the roof or wall. In case of vents which are placed on the roof of a building, the vents may be shaped, colored, and surface-structured like clay or concrete tiles and are then often referred to as vent tile or ventilation roof tile.
For example, Harry O'Hagin describes in U.S. Pat. No. 6,447,390 B1 a “Method and Apparatus for Roof Ventilation,” which entails various styles of roof vents which are “generally conforming to and are adapted to be mounted . . . among a plurality of roof tiles”. Furthermore, Harry O'Hagin and Carolina O'Hagin describe in U.S. Pat. No. D458,392 S a “tile roof with a cloaked roof vent”. Similarly, Harry O'Hagin describes in EP 0 980 498 B1 an attic vent which attempts to match the surrounding tilted tile roofs appearance and wherein the “vent skeleton being formed of a single piece of material”.
Such conventional vents are typically made from a single material, like metal, such as sheet metal, or in some cases, steel, or in some cases aluminum, copper, or other metals, or a single alloy thereof. While these materials allow the manufacture of such vents in a cost effective manner, the physical and chemical properties of the vent are limited to the material properties of the single material, such as sheet metal, of which they are made.
Therefore, there is a mismatch between said physical and chemical properties and those of the actual roof or wall, which is typically manufactured from concrete, clay, ceramics, or wood. Furthermore, certain levels of physical and chemical properties can simply not be reached with a ventilation roof tile solely manufactured from sheet metal.
Hence there is need for a way to tailor the properties of vents in such a way that additional, overall properties can be achieved which may not be achieved with vents that are predominantly a single metallic, plastic, or ceramic material. Multi-layered, multi-functional systems can provide such capabilities.